


Dragon's Thief

by Moonsheen



Category: Dragon's Bait - Vivian Vande Velde
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 17:21:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17026902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonsheen/pseuds/Moonsheen
Summary: Alys thought it would be a normal day in the market.





	Dragon's Thief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kitsune_Scribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitsune_Scribe/gifts).



The day of the port attack started like any other day.

The cottage was empty when Alys woke around midday, but that wasn't unusual. Selendrile had gone off to do whatever it was he did during the daylight hours, a question that Alys had long discovered she never really wanted the answer to. The first time she found him eating a deer in the fields, she'd nearly been sick.

"What? You do it, too." He'd seemed to say, his muzzle dripping with blood. Dragons couldn't transform during the day, but she'd long learned to read the shifts in those violet eyes. They weren't unlike cats in that way. They weren't unlike cats in other ways too. Oh, she'd hoped he'd at least made it quick.

"Oh, don’t look at me like that!" She'd said once she was sure she wouldn't be sick. "Humans cook their food!"

Even dragons could smirk. Selendrile did it then, but she never caught him at it again.

The truth was a young dragon was only a minor inconvenience in the farmlands around Tierbo, where the loss of an occasional sheep or goat or a gutted deer could be just as easily attributed to a wolf or their own stupidity. The dragon was more predictable a nuisance than either of those things, anyway, and that shadow in the skies kept the wolves and thieves away besides. The even more canny farmers knew to set out their weak or injured outside by the fence, so their finer stock went unharassed.

"The dragon tax, Jocko," laughed old Grem, the nearly blind tinsmith who Alys apprenticed with two days out of the week. "Kinder than the kings, let it be said!"

Alys found it hard to laugh when she saw the animals tied out there as offerings on her way to and from the port city. She related to them all too well. Though, as of yet, she’d come to a much better end.

The day the dragon attacked, no one made jokes like that. Tierbo was done up for a feast day, and the guards lax in their checks as Alys, in her men’s clothes and short hair, sauntered through the gate as she did every week or two.

"Ey, Jocko," said Captain Mathieu, in a half-hearted sort of way. He'd clearly been drinking. "Hows the farm?"

"Eh, you know." Alys shrugged, a trick she'd learned from Selendrile. People often took their own answers from gestures like that.

"Mind yourself," warned Mathieu. "Gates open today. Sir Rackham's come home."

Alys almost asked more about that, but a woman and her five kids brought a cart full of chickens in behind her, and Captain Mathieu's attention wandered to the louder task at hand.

She heard more about him as she walked to market. The streets were decorated like a feast day and there was going to be a special mass. “Oh, Rackham? Local hero that one. Church raised money to get him gear and send him to the Holy Land a few years ago, even though he was just the son of some merchants. He’s been off winning us fame and glory on some heathen hill.”

Alys didn’t know much about the Holy Land or about heathens, but she knew Sir Rackham must have been something if the Church was going to hold a special vigil for him.

As Alys went about her errands, it seemed Sir Rackham was all anyone could talk about. He wore armor of gold. He'd fought a legion of pirates before even reaching the open ocean. He'd fought ten waves of heathens. He'd prayed in the Holy Land. In Alys opinion, gold armor sounded way too soft, and most pirates didn’t dare make a pass at the sedate and heavily fortified Tierbo harbor, but perhaps he was half-way to being a hero. She used the commotion to go about less bothered than usual. The 'hey Jocko's’ were more distracted all around. Alys bought seeds and grains and potatoes in the marketplace and learned more about Sir Rackhams fantastical deeds.

"Sir Rackham," called a merchant. "Tell us again about the Holy Land!"

In fact, the man himself was camped in the square by the garden. Alys paused. She stood on her toes to get a look at him.

He didn’t wear golden armor, though it had bronze detailing, polished with no sign of wear. He wasn't seven feet tall, either, more short and squat like most men in Tierbo, with brown, sun-bleached hair, a close-cropped beard, and ruddy pink cheeks that, around those parts, could be evidence of either sunburn from a long day in the sun or a love of wine. He held a battered helm under his arm.

"The Holy Land," Sir Rackham boomed, he had a rich storytellers voice. "I am glad you asked. When I first laid eyes on it, I was amazed. The desert hills were peaked in gold, and rolled on forever..."

"Sir Rackham," called another onlooker. "Did you really fight a heathen general."

Sir Rackham's eyes darkened at this. "Fought and defeated," he intoned, in a low mournful voice that nevertheless managed to travel to the back of the afternoon crowd. "Though I take no pleasure in the death of a man. Even a brutal enemy."

Alys had the sense she was watching a late Sunday sermon.

"Sir Rackham! What about the army?"

"Did you ride a camel?"

"Did you fight a--"

"Dragon!"

This last cry didn't come from the onlookers. It came from the docks, at a distinctly high pitch, and was followed by a loud crash and a clanging of alarm bells.

For a moment the crowd and Alys didn't register it. Alys' first thought was, "He was supposed to come for me once I was in the hills!"

But then she heard a high pitched screech, and the shadow passed over her, and her heart sank.

The dragon's scales were gold, like Selendrile, but rather than the pale gold of wheat or freshly minted gold, it was a deep, red-gold, just sort of bronze, and they glinted like fire in the sun as the dragon wheeled in the sky, it's long wild mane whipping in the wind. The shift of its wings told Alys it was about to angle low. She had a second before the rest of the crowd to drop her sacks and throw herself sideways towards the edge square, before the real press everyone began jostling and screaming and stepping on each other, as the dragon came screaming through the streets, and a rooftop behind them burst into flames.

"The dragon! The dragon’s here!"

"Oh, the good Lord preserve us--"

"It's not--" Alys started. ‘It’s not him!’ she’d almost shouted, but she realized how ridiculous that would sound. What did they care if it wasn’t the same dragon? They would certainly care that she cared, though. A horse broke its reigns and went galloping past her. Alys threw herself into a stall to avoid being trampled, then she picked herself up and charged through the ash-filled streets.

Captain Mathieu was still trying to close the gates. It wasn’t easy. Travelers were rushing in, still attempting to push their carts and bring their mounts, even though the dragon strafed the outer wall, and every single horse collectively lost its mind.

“Easy, easy,” said Mathieu, now stone-cold sober. “Don’t shove -- Just let him loose, Griet! Eh, Jocko, where you going? Stay behind the wall, Jocko!”

He made a grab at her, but Alys dropped low and out of the way.

“Jocko!” he shouted. He looked torn, like he wanted to chase her, but he had to clear the gates, and in the end duty came first.

Alys didn’t have time to feel bad about. She ran along the road and then off into the hills. Her hat fell off but she kept running, around the bend, towards the place she was supposed to meet him. The light was getting low. He should’ve been there, anyway.

“Selendrile!” she shouted. “Selendrile! Where are you? What’s happening?!”

She heard the rushing of wings overhead.

The size of the shadow was wrong. Alys threw herself down into the ground to avoid the dragon as it passed her overhead.

She got up on all fours. She could see it turn midair, its claws still outstretched in a failed grab. In the meadow now, with the reference of trees and hills, she could see now how much bigger it was than Selendrile. She’d always known he was small, by dragon’s standards, but to actually see it...

Alys tried to scrabble, carefully, off to the grove and the cover of the trees -- but it was too late. The dragon’s searching head steadied, zeroing in on her. The quiver of its wings told her it was about to bank left and it dove, claws spread like a bird of prey’s…

A paler blur barreled into it sideways, sending it off course and crashing into the hill, its bird’s scream cut off in the fall.

Selendrile! Alys watched him pick his way out of the roiling mess, wings still half spread and mane filled with grass and broken twigs. He stumbled onto his feet, but he didn’t have long -- because the other dragon reared out from under him and charged into him in turn. They went rolling and thrashing down into the meadow, a mess of flashing gold and scrabbling claws, tails lashing and wings stirring up a storm of dirt and sticks and rocks.

Alys should have stayed under cover, but her heart seized up. That dragon was so much bigger than him, at least twice as large, and it used it to its advantage. By the time Alys had picked her way back over the slope, it had Selendrile on his back, one of his wings pinned under its foreleg. Oh, he was scratching and screaming at it, but she could see the blood in his beautiful scales, and other dragon was closing in on him, jaws wide..

Alys did the only thing she knew what to do when confronted with a large dragon about to do something horrible. She picked up a decent-sized rock and lobbed it as hard as she could.

"You leave him alone!" she cried.

The rock bounced off the strange dragon’s half-furled wing. It was her voice more than the stone that got its attention. It paused, craning its head over at her, one head cocked to the side like a bird, as if to say: ‘What on earth is that fool child _doing_?’

And under the strange dragon, Selendrile also paused, head tilted as though to say, ‘Yes, she does that.’

And then he brought his upper body up to crash his head into the side of the strange dragon’s neck.

It fell off of him. Alys skidded to a stop to avoid getting crushed. The strange dragon rolled onto its feet, shaking its head. Selendrile recovered, spreading his wings and opening his mouth into a snarl, blood streaming down the side of his neck. He flapped his wings once, and twice, and gave a deep huffing noise. It must have meant something to dragons, because the other dragon craned its head at him. It spread its own wings and flapped them back at him. Selendrile took a step forward, making a phantom swipe in the air between them. The other dragon reared back on its hind legs and made a strange, croaking noise somewhere in the back of its throat.

‘Are they… talking?’ Alys wondered. Then she felt very stupid, because of course dragons could talk to each other.

Then, it seemed to decide it wasn’t worth the trouble, because it shook the dirt off of its wings, brushed twigs out of its mane, and took off over the trees, making a point of blowing another stream of fire in the general direction of the shuttered town as it went.

Selendrile gave the dragon equivalent of a sigh and fell back in the grass.

“Selendrile,” cried Alys, now that she remembered how her legs worked. She rushed over to him. He looked awful, claw marks all up and down his body. “Are you--”

Selendrile’s eyes flicked up at her in the barest of acknowledgments before he surged forward, half in the air before he reached her. He grabbed her by her wrists. He hadn’t done it so without warning in a long time, and Alys yelped as he carried her airborne, just as the first stars began to appear in the twilight.

Still, when he dumped her in the haystack, she was up almost immediately. “You’re hurt!” she shouted, running to him.

Selendrile seemed to roll his eyes as he began stalking away, wings tight over his scratched up sides.

“Don’t be proud.” She tugged at one wing tip. “At least let me _look_. They might fester.”

He transformed under her hands. She almost fell forward for the sudden lack of space in front of her.

Human now, Selendrile turned, hands on his hips with no care at all for his nudity, but Alys had long learned to keep her eyes on his face when he did that. “It’s not _pride_ ,” he said, tetchily. “It really is nothing. See?”

He held up his arm.

The scratches, which had looked like huge awful gashes from Alys’ perspective, looked much shallower on his human body. There were a lot of them, all over -- and Alys had to glance quickly over the ones that were lower -- but they were thin, light cuts, the kind of scrapes and bumps you got from a trip, or a bad attempt at grabbing the town cat.

Dragons had thick hides.

“Oh,” she said. “But she had you on your back…”

“Yes,” said Selendrile, he seemed annoyed she brought that up. “A _warning_ . None of us would get very far if we fought to the death the instant we met. There are few enough of us as…”

Then he remembered himself, and went quiet.

“I’m fine,” he said again.

“Will you at least let me wash the one over your eye?” asked Alys.

“Will it make you fuss less?”

“Yes,” said Alys.

His stance relaxed. “Ah.” He said, in that way he did as a replacement for his exasperated ‘Humans!’ But he picked up the slacks he kept on a hook in the barn and followed her to the cottage.

“What did he want?” asked Alys, once she’d gotten some water going. Selendrile sat in a stool in the pantry. She pressed the cloth to the side of Selendrile’s face. He didn’t jolt under her touch at all.

“She,” said Selendrile, eyes following her lazily. As she moved the towel down his neck, he let her tip his head to one side. He wasn’t bothered by having her hand so close to his throat. He never had been. “Is very upset with the city.”

“I understood that much,” said Alys. “Since she set a few roofs on fire.”

“Another warning,” said Selendrile. “I think she’s being gracious, since most of them are too foolish to know. They stole something from her hoard.”

Alys paused on his shoulder. “They?”

Selendrile let his eyes wander to the ceiling, as he gauged just how to tell her.

“A man did,” said Selendrile. “A knight. She has been chasing him down the coast. She nearly had him over the straits to the north, but he made it to shore. He has locked himself and the treasure within the town, and she will tear it apart to get it back.”

“She told you all of that?”

“While throwing me across the meadow, yes,” said Selendrile. “I may be elaborating, some. Are you going to wash me there, too?

He nodded towards the long red marks on his stomach. Alys glared. “You’re trying to distract me.”

But she did press the cloth just under his ribs, just to make a point. This time his skin did jolt, just a little. Dragons had soft bellies, even in human form as it turned out.

“To be more exact, she said if I did not let her tear the town apart, she would rip me open like a fish and trail my guts across the countryside.”

“Oh,” said Alys.

“Does that help?” asked Selendrile, with a smile.

“Don’t be disgusting,” said Alys, slapping him faintly with the cloth, before picking up his arm and rubbing that down, too. “I was really worried about you. And the town. But also you. I’ve never seen a dragon that…”

Big, she almost said, but then she noticed Selendrile’s eyebrows had gone up.

“Did you see any dragons before me?” he asked innocently.

Alys turned red. “You know what I mean. I like them better when they’re you. You at least I can understand. Sort of. Sometimes… Anyway, you’ve never minded when I’ve paid for things with coins from your hoard.”

“That’s different,” said Selendrile.

“How?”

Another pause, as he considered how to answer it it terms a human might understand. “That is given freely, not taken,” he said, finally. “And besides, coin is one thing. _Treasure_ is another. If it was worth chasing this knight down the coast, then it must have been something valuable.”

“More valuable than a sack of gold coins?”

Selendrile’s smile widened. “Much more. I would do the same myself, if something like that were taken from me.”

Alys shivered. “We can’t let her burn down the town.”

Selendrile’s smile faded. “Did I say I would? Would you let someone come in here and smash all the chairs? Would you let someone set fire to the yard?”

Alys almost pointed out that Tierbo was hardly Selendrile’s pantry, but it occurred to her all at once that to him it was. He grabbed sheep and game as he pleased. He could fly from Griswold to Tierbo in less than an hour. To him, all these roads must have seemed the size of the pantry, and a well stocked one, too.

“No I would… yell, probably. And throw things at them.”

“You are very good at both of those things.”

“I’m _worried_ ,” said Alys. “You’re not going to have to _really_ fight her, are you?”

His hand over hers snapped her out of this particular revelation. She’d stopped wiping the wounds on his arm. Her hand had settled, unbidden, over his. He turned his fingers over to hold her by the wrist, and then, in his infuriating way, pulled. She fell forward. He caught her by the chin, and brushed their mouths together, for one warm, long moment.

“Better?” he asked, when he pulled away.

“You…” She touched her mouth. Red to her ears, the way he always left her when he did something so strange and unexpected. “You can’t just kiss me to end the conversation.”

“No, I kissed you so you would calm down,” he said.  
  
The heart hammering in her ears was the opposite of calm. “That isn’t how it works.”

“That’s how you do it with me,” he pointed out.

He wasn’t wrong. Alys stared dumbly at the floor, but, after a second, she tilted her chin up so he could do it again.

“Okay,” she said, pulling away. “But you’ll let me think of some other way, right?”

“Hm,” said Selendrile, with one of his unreadable stares. Then he shook his head and said, “Yes, you do that, too.”

“Let me look at your back, all right?”

And, stifling a silent laugh, Selendrile turned away.

 

* * *

 

Alys spent the rest of the night with Selendrile in the barn. She insisted, really, despite his most withering of stares.

“In case she does come to smash all our chairs,” she said. The dragon shut his eyes and rested his chin on his tail. Which was a victory, as far as she was concerned. She took her pile of quilts and set up next to him, taking care as she leaned against his side. Cleaned and patted down, the scratches didn’t look that bad. In fact, they already seemed to be healing, despite the break in his gold scales.

The real reason she’d insisted was to make sure he would still be there when she woke up, but she must have dozed off more deeply than she’d meant to, because by the time Alys opened her eyes it was some time deep in the night and he was gone, though there was a pillow from the attic in his place. She should’ve known he’d figure out a way to do that. Sighing, Alys picked herself up, pausing at the door. She couldn’t hear any wolves, or wings, or anything like that.

Oh, well. Alys kindled a lamp. There was no sense staying in the empty barn, and her stomach was growling besides. Living with Selendrile had given her the devil’s hours. She still had some grain left, even if she’d left the fresh bag tossed in the streets during the attack.

She made it halfway before she felt a shiver down the back of her neck, and heard a shifting creak of wood. Alys turned.

There, crouched atop the fence that marked the start of the yard, was a woman. Tall, beautiful, and completely naked.

Alys stopped mid-step, dropping her quilts.

“Oh,” she said, “You did follow us.”

The woman’s red-blonde hair went all the way down to her ankles, but it didn’t do anything to hide her nakedness. Despite her generous, hanging breasts and her long legs and arms, she was more muscular than any woman Alys had ever seen, save maybe her own reflection. Alys could admit her apprenticeships with the local tinsmith had given more strength than most women her age, but it was still nothing on the powerful arm which rested on the fence post. There was no doubt from this dragon’s human form that she was in her prime.

“It’s rude to stare,”  said Alys. It sounded braver than she felt just then. “You wouldn’t be human right now if you didn’t have something to say to me.”

The dragon narrowed her eyes. They were violet, like Selendrile’s, but darker, with more of a blue cast.

“I thought he might have wanted to eat you,” she said, in a startlingly deep voice, rough from disuse, “but he keeps you.”

“He doesn’t keep me. I live here,” said Alys.

“He keeps you,” said the dragon, her nostrils flaring. She leapt off the fence, landing with the grace of a cat, despite her human form. She was tall, too. Gloriously tall. Even naked with her wild, untamed hair, there was something glamorous about it. “You smell like him. This whole place does.”

Alys turned red. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business. This is my home, not yours.”

The dragon stared at her. Alys wondered for a moment if she would transform and snap her up right that second, but the dragon woman pulled a ragged hank of hair out of her face and curled her nose.

“I have no interest in _his_ hoard,” she said.

“Then why are you talking to me?” asked Alys. Maybe the question was tantamount to suicide, but she genuinely wanted to know. Selendrile had taught her dragon’s could have strange whims, but they didn’t do most things without a reason -- or at least some justification for their own self-interest. “I didn’t take your treasure.”

The dragon made a sharp noise that might have come out a growl if she hadn’t been human just then. “No. The knight took my treasure. _You_ didn’t run away. I wanted to know why.”

“You attacked Selendrile,” said Alys.

“ _He_ attacked _me_ ,” said the dragon, “but now I know why.”

The dragon woman held up her arm, forcing Alys to look downwards. Alys could see across the dragon woman’s arm and side, dark scratch marks, not unlike the ones she’d cleaned on Selendrile’s back earlier that night. Selendrile had struck first, technically, but as he’d done it to stop the other dragon from eating Alys, it seemed a bit of a moot point.

“Because I’m his,” said Alys. She caught herself, “or you think I’m his. It’s really not quite like that. I live with Selendrile because I want to. He doesn’t own me -- oh, nevermind that! You dragons are so good at being distracting. You attacked me. And you attacked Tierbo -- that town. They didn’t take your treasure!”

“But my treasure is there,” said the dragon. “I can smell it. The same way _he_ can smell _you_. They have taken something which is mine, and I will have it back.”

“I understand,” said Alys. The dragon tilted her head at her, as though to say, ‘Oh really?’ “It’s awful, having something precious of yours stolen, but destroying a whole town isn’t going to guarantee you get it back.”

“It will if I burn it,” said the dragon, her eyes glittering in the lamplight. “Unlike his, my treasures don’t burn.”

Alys shivered. She told herself it was just the night air.

“I won’t let you,” said Alys, “and if I won’t, I don’t think Selendrile will, either. He considers this place… his. Like you said.”

That earned her a considerate pause. The dragon swaying in place like a snake, her hair shifting over her shoulder.

“He is young,” she said. “I am not. I could tear him in half, if I’d like. I am telling you this because you seem of greater value to him. If he wishes to keep what is his, tell him to take it and go. I shall allow it. But leave me this town, so I can have what is mine.”

‘So that’s it,’ thought Alys. They’d finally come to it. The dragon wanted to barter, in a strange, dragon way.

“Is it easy to burn a town?” asked Alys. “And kill everyone in it? And look through all those ashes, to find your treasure?”

The dragon blinked, once.

“I could do it in a day,” she said. “Human encampments are nothing to me. Mounds in the sand, to be wiped away by the tide.”

“Maybe, but you haven’t answered me. Is it easy?” asked Alys. “You didn’t do it today. You could have, before Selendrile came. And how long would it take you to find it in the wreckage? Do you know? Have you done it before? It sounds like it would take a lot of time. It sounds sort of boring.”

The dragon’s lips pulled back, showing a set of surprisingly white teeth.

“I’m just wondering,” said Alys. “If there were a faster way to get it back, would you take it?”

“You mean that,” said the dragon, startled.

“Of course I do,” said Alys. “You’d rather make a game of it, wouldn’t you? I have one. Let me try to get it back. I’ll bet you I could. I bet you I could do it faster than it would take you to pick it up out of the ashes, after you’ve burned and eaten everyone.”

‘What am I saying?’ thought Alys.

The dragon shifted. Alys was sure she was about to laugh in her face, or transform back at eat her for the sheer gall of the suggestion, but her eyes glittered in that way that Alys had recognized in Selendrile meant her curiosity was piqued, and she knew she had her.

“Until the next full moon,” said the dragon, jerking her head in the general direction of the moon over the trees.

That was in three days.

“I can do that,” said Alys, even as she balked at the time frame. “I’ve done stranger in less.”

“Strange certainly describes you,” said the dragon. “No wonder he keeps you. You are an interesting pet.”

“I’m not--” Alys could see from the way the dragon rested her arm on the fence she was about to shift back, and Alys stopped herself, hands clenching into fists.  “Can you tell me what your treasure looked like? It will make it easier for me to find it.”

The dragon’s eyes narrowed.

“No,” she said. “I don’t want to make it easy for you.”

“You want it back, don’t you?”  
  
“I’ll have it back one way or another,” said the dragon.

“Ugh, you dragons! Why are you always like this?” Alys shouted. When the dragon just cocked her head at her, she sighed and tried again: “Fine. I’ll find out what your treasure is and then I’ll bring it to you. Do you at least have something I can call you? When I come with your treasure, I mean.”

The dragon paused.

“Khelliandros,” she said, with a soft hiss, and an airiness that suggested she may have picked the syllables out of thin air. “Bring it to me. With or without the head of the knight who stole it from me. I will wait where we first met. Call that there, and I will come. When you fail, I will eat you first, for thinking you can toy with me.”

Then she opened her arms and transformed. Alys held an arm up against the wind. A dark blur winged its way back up over the trees.

Alys felt her knees give way. She swayed. Arms caught her from behind. Selendrile took her weight like it was nothing.

“How long have you been there?” asked Alys, numbly. She could barely hear her voice above the hammering of her heart in her ears.

“Since she appeared over the woods,” said Selendrile. “She has been circling for hours now. I’ve been following her.” But Alys suspected by the way he his hand held tightly over hers, that wasn’t expressly true.

“I’m all right,” she said.

“I know that,” he said, but he didn’t let her go until they were back in the barn.

 

* * *

 

“Obviously the knight is Sir Rackham,” said Alys, as she recounted what she could remember before the attack. “That much is clear. The dragon came here when he did. I’m just amazed she followed him all the way from the Holy Land.”

Selendrile snorted.

“You… don’t think she followed him from the Holy Land?”

“She came from the north,” said Selendrile, “and so did he, to have robbed her. I would be surprised if the man you described ever set foot anywhere across the ocean.”

“But he went to join the crusades,” Alys began. Selendrile looked at her. She sighed. “But you think he lied about that. Why? The town paid his way.”

“And how far do you think their goodwill could have taken him?” asked Selendrile. “A port further north, or perhaps halfway to the islands in the inner seas, full of what you humans call, hm, wine, women, and song?”

“You didn’t even see him.”

“You did. What did you think?”

“He was short and wide. And jolly. His armor was very… shiny,” said Alys. “...It didn’t look like it’d ever been scratched, and it wasn’t made of a very strong material.”

“And his stories about the Holy Land?”

“They sounded like the stories anyone would tell,” admitted Alys. “You’re probably right. I hate when you’re right about these things. But if he’s just a liar and a coward, why would he have stolen anything from a dragon?”

Selendrile watched her expectantly. Alys followed the thought to its rightful conclusion.

“Because he was out of money, and had to go home,” she said. “Somehow he came across the hoard, and grabbed what he could to get him the rest of the way. If he could present the town a relic, like a Saint would, they’d believe him, or at least not think too hard about where else he could have been with all their donations, so whatever he gave them is probably… this is going to end in me robbing a church again, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” said Selendrile, though the corner of his lips twitched in amusement. “You do seem to be making a habit of it.”

Alys put her head in her hands.

 

* * *

 

The next day, Alys returned to Tierbo. Selendrile insisted on dropping her off half way.

“You should be careful, too,” she said, after he dumped her on the hill. He almost did it neatly this time. Her feet touched down with minimal stumbling. He landed behind her, and nipped boredly at the loose scales on his foreleg. It seemed to say: ‘Careful of what?’

As though he didn’t still have faint marks from yesterday’s fight! “They think Khelliandros is you, you know. Someone might, I don’t know. Do something.”

Selendrile glanced at her dubiously. It was amazing how much he could say as a dragon, even when he couldn’t say anything in human tongue at all.

“I don’t know, the guards have crossbows, you know,” said Alys. “...But Khelliandros is probably waiting around, too. Please don’t be too reckless on my account, all right? I’ll do what I said I would. And I’ll meet you tonight. We can talk it over then.”

Selendrile shut his eyes and bumped his muzzle against her hand before he threw himself back over the ridge.

Alys had made a point of putting on a pre-torn shirt and scorched pair of slacks with the vague idea of begging her way back through the gates, but she was surprised to find they were open. The local farmers and fishermen from around the town were seeking shelter, whole families carrying their belongings, dragging carts, and negotiating with stubborn pack animals. The guards checked them as they came in.

“We’re lucky our dragon did something about it,” muttered one girl about Alys’ age, bobbling an infant on her hip. “You see the way it barreled into the other one?”

“Don’t think it did it out of any loyalty to us,” said her husband.

‘Our dragon!’ thought Alys. But she supposed it was just as well they didn’t think Selendrile the culprit. When she got to the gate, Captain Mathieu was there checking off refugees. He’d traded slight drunkeness for pure exhaustion. He must have been up all night.

“Eh, Jocko,” he said, looking visibly relieved. “You got through all right?”

Alys gave her customary shrug, but she felt obligated to say more. “Dragon made it to my farm,” she said. “Can’t find my brother.”

Neither of these things were actually a lie.

“Sorry to hear that,” said Mathieu, drawing his own conclusions from her rumpled clothes. “Listen, the White Whale’s taking refugees. Think they still have some space in their cellar.”

“Can’t someone chase it off?” asked Alys.

“There’s talk,” said Mathieu, “but it’s -- well, in you go, Jocko. We’ll be setting the ballistas out tonight. Should be safer.”

Once inside, Alys was surprised to find the town in better condition than she’d expected. Oh, a few houses along the main street were now missing roofs, and they were clearing debris out from around the docks, but all in all there was more activity than she’d expected. People were still picking around the fallen beams to find what shops were open, and out by the dock only one ship had been scuttled to douse the flames. It wasn’t hard to overhear the gossip. A dragon attacked. Another dragon attacked it. What could be done? What if it came again? When would it come again?

“If only there were someone who could do something,” said Alys, among a group of sailors sweeping broken barrels and spilled pickles off the docks. “Isn’t there a knight we can petition?”

“Aye, you must be new,” said the first sailor. “There’s Sir Rackham, but he’s gone and locked himself in the rectory.”

“Maybe killing heathens is all he’s good for,” muttered the second sailor.

“Hey now,” said the first sailor. “Leave the man alone. His stories are good for something, at least. My old ma wouldn’t do without!”

That gave Alys something to work on. Many of the owners and residents of the wrecked houses and farms had gone to the church to seek refuge. The sun set as she arrived. The doors were open, Father Donlin and his priests were distributing alms and bread donated by the local bakeries. Alys accepted one of the small loaves, and immediately handed it to a cowering child. It seemed dishonest to keep it for herself, knowing her home was one of the few guaranteed to be entirely safe.

Sir Rackham wasn’t in the church. Neither was anything that looked like it could have been any kind of treasure. There was the silver cross up on the wall, and the reliquary in the chapel, but those had been there since Alys had first come to Tierbo. She went out to the churchyard for air. She went to the far gate, pressed her face against the fence, and held out her hand.

“All right,” she said, “I guess we will have to try the rectory.”

A mouse dropped a set of copper keys into her hand, gnawed fresh out of Father Donlin’s pocket.

 

* * *

 

Maybe the key wouldn’t work. Maybe the door would stick. Maybe she could magically find some other way to do this that wouldn’t involve, once again, blaspheming against God and risking her immortal soul.

But then, if such a thing existed, she supposed living with a dragon probably already forfeited it. Alys didn’t feel especially soulless, though.

The key clicked in the lock. The gate opened without even a creak.

“Oh,” said Alys. “I guess I have to do this then.”

She crept inside.

The rectory was quiet, which made sense -- with all the priests holding vigil among the refugees. The priests in Tierbo had a lot of parishioners, but she was oddly relieved to find the house itself simple in its decor. No ornate sconces or elaborate paintings. Just plain wooden walls and simple wooden chairs with thatched seats. The pews in the Church itself were much more elaborate, with carved arms and painted backs.

Alys checked the first floor, which belonged to the acolytes. She found nothing but some sheets of transcribed scripture and a frayed bible. She left these things where they were. One of the acolytes had a lewd woodcut of a Pagan god chasing naked women in a case under his bed. She definitely left that where it was. Father Donlin’s offices were more of the same. Simple furniture, several versions of the bible in a case by the door. A simple tin cup on the desk, half filled with wine. Some half-burned down candles by a small portrait of a saint, painted on wood. A small pull out box bed was stuffed in the corner. Father Donlin didn’t believe in luxury. It was one of the reason the people of Tierbo liked him.

Alys tried the room at the other end of the hall. The last key on the ring unlocked it. This must have been Sir Rackham’s room, as it was filled with travel chests. This room was much nicer than the rest. The candlesticks were metal, and it had an actual stained glass window. A pair of tapestries hung from the north and south walls. The four poster bed was unmade, with a large religious painting hanging over it. A series of cups sat on the desk under the window. Alys checked each of these carefully, tapping them against the desk. Gilt. Hardly anything fine enough for a dragon. She checked the drawers. She found letters. And more wine bottles.

Alys was just debating whether to start rummaging through the letters to see if there was some clue when she heard a creak from the door. She dove behind a tapestry just as it opened. A second later, she heard boots in the room.

Then, a deep voice: “...Now, lad. Don’t pretend. I could hear you from out in the hall.”

Alys held her breath, but a second later the tapestry was swept aside, and Sir Rackham, in full armor, stared her dead in the eye.

“I…” she began.

“I don’t know your reasons, but if you’re looking for the church silver,” he said, “I’m afraid they keep that locked in the chapel. And you won’t be getting at it, seeing as I have to report you to Father Donlin.”

He grabbed her arm. Despite his portly, jovial appearance, he had a startlingly strong grip. Alys almost yelped as he hauled her out.

“I know what you did,” she shouted, instead.

Sir Rackham the grip faltered, but only slightly. He grabbed her by the back of her shirt and began to haul her out of the room.

“Nice try, lad, but I’m not the one rooting around the rectory.”

“About the Holy Land,” she said.

“Been, have you?” He almost had her out the door.

“You’re the reason the dragon’s here,” she said. “You could at least admit what you took!”

That stopped him. Sir Rackham reversed course, and dragged her back into the room, shut the door, and locked it. He let her go. Alys stumbled back. The knight was looking at her. He looked at her for a long time.

That was when Alys remembered he had a sword.

“And I’m not the only one,” she added, quickly. Not a lie. She took a step back. If she could reach the window, maybe she could break it. Maybe Selendrile was waiting outside in bird form. Maybe… “If something happens to me, they’ll tell everyone.”

Actually, she wasn’t entirely sure what Selendrile would do if something happened to her, but, if it was anything like what Khelliandros did yesterday, perhaps she was understating the circumstances, just a bit.

Still, the knight advanced on her, his jaw set. “And what do you and your people know?”

“You lied about going to the Holy Land,” said Alys. “You went north instead. And you robbed the dragon’s hoard. And now the dragon’s followed you down the coast to get it back, and it’s going to burn down this whole town, all because you won’t give it back!”

“That’s what she told you, eh?”

He’d stopped.

“What?”

The knight closed his eyes. “The dragon, I mean,” he said. “Khelliandros, she calls herself. She the one who put you up to this?”

“You know her name?”

Which was as good as a yes. The knight’s shoulders fell with a creak of metal. “Aye, lad, I do,” he sighed. “And I thought she at least had the decency not to make some child do her bidding, but I suppose she is past the point of reason. How she put you up to it? She have something over you? Your farm? Your father?”

‘This whole town,’ thought Alys, but then she realized: nothing, really. Alys had volunteered to do this all on her own.

“It’s complicated,” she said, finally.

“It must be, to make a deal with a dragon,” he said. “They don’t like anything simple.”

“You’re right about that,” admitted Alys.

The knight smiled bitterly. Then he sank down onto the chair at his desk, as though taken by a sudden exhaustion.

“Well, lad,” he said, his storyteller’s voice suddenly weak and distant. “Why don’t you tell me what you know?”

 

* * *

 

Selendrile was right. Sir Rackham had only made it to the inner city, but not for the reasons she’d thought.

“Oh, the funds would’ve gotten me there. It was enough for the ship, for my outfit, and my family were happy to advance me the rest,” admitted Rackham. “The trouble was… spiritual, I suppose.”

Rackham had looked upon the waves of the inner sea and come to a horrible realization: He didn’t want to go to war.

“What is a ‘heathen,’ but another man? I saw no good reason to end their lives. What had they done beyond live their lives and follow their faith as strongly as I’d followed mine?”

“That seems… very reasonable, actually,” said Alys. “Why not just come home and tell everyone that?’

“Because my faith was weak,” groaned Rackham holding his head. “Because no one would have believed me. They would say I was taken by an evil spirit. They would say my nerve failed me. No, I could not go back. Not with nothing to show for it.”

So Rackham had returned to the north, and tried to sell his sword to the protection of the innocents. The trouble was, most ‘innocents’ in need of protection were local lords interested in bullying their charges. It was there, in his darkest hour, that he’d met Khelliandros.

“She came to me in the form of a woman. I thought her the lady of the lake…”

‘She must not have shown up naked on a fencepost then,’ thought Alys.

“She offered me a charge like the knights of old, she said. She had me guard an ancient castle, deep in a forest. It was often beset by bandits, and all she wanted was for me to turn them out. To keep the paths hidden. To keep the forest in solitude.”

Ah, how shocked he’d been to discover she was a dragon! And that in reality she’d used him to guard her hoard!

“I don’t know,” said Alys. “That sounds very generous for a dragon. Did she pay you?”

“What a wordly boy you are,” said Rackham. “She offered me a stipend, for my room and my upkeep. She offered me armor, and weapons, everything I could need in pursuit of her cause. But think where it must have come from!”  
  
Alys tried not to think too hard about where dragons got their gold as a personal rule, but she did her best to nod in understanding.

“Ah, but when I found her true nature, how I fell into grief. Not only had I failed to fight for my faith in the Holy Land, but I had fallen into the thrall of a creature beyond God! And I had taken her for some fair lady! There was no end to my shame. But in the end, I thought of my poor town, which had so desperately wished me to be a hero. I thought, if I could perhaps give them that hope, I could erase at least some of my sin…”

“By lying to them,” said Alys, “and stealing from the dragon. Who, from what I can tell, had just employed you to be a guard.”

The knight’s whiskers seem to droop under the weight of his own woe. “It is true, I did lie to everyone here about my adventures in the Holy Land,” he admitted. “I did not want to crush their belief in me. They had so wanted a hero of their own. But I did not steal from Khelliandros. I returned with little but my gear, my horse, the clothes on my back!”

“And your armor,” realized Alys.

“And my armor,” groaned Rackham.

“That she gave you,” said Alys.

“That she gave me!” Then, all at once, his little eyes opened very wide. “Oh.”

He unlatched his helm and stared down at it.

“It… does look very old,” Alys volunteered.  
  
“I have brought ruin to this town,” said Rackham very faintly.

“You could just give it back,” said Alys.

Rackham gestured so dramatically Alys had to step back to avoid getting clonked in the head.

“Would that I could, lad,” he wailed, with a great shaking of his jolly red cheeks. They weren’t red from wine, she was starting to realize, but a great deal of crying. “Would that I could, but how, without revealing my deceit! Or worse yet, my own communion with a beast as hideous as a dragon!”

“She’s not that hideous,” said Alys, feeling oddly called out. “I’ve certainly seen dragons with prettier scales, but…”

But thankfully Rackham didn’t seem to have heard her. “Ah, no, I would cast the entire town into despair.  To think they had placed so much into a weak-hearted coward, and one who brought a curse upon them. And now, they must suffer my own weaknesses. I know not how to set it right, save perhaps to dive into the ocean, and let the beast follow me there!”

“I don’t think you have to do that.”

“But I must,” cried Rackham, standing with a dreadful purpose. “It is the only way to atone!”

“I think we can come up with something else!”

Rackham peered at her out of the corner of his eye. He cleared his throat.

“I am absolutely ready to sacrifice my life if need be,” he said, “but, er, just to be certain: _do_ you have any ideas?”

 

* * *

 

“So, you see, you were wrong about Sir Rackham,” Alys explained that night, after Selendrile dropped her on the haystack, and fetched a set of trousers from the door.

She ate her stew mostly at his insistence. ‘Since you humans do need to eat more often than we do,’ he said, which was his lofty way of fussing, she’d learned a long time ago.

Selendrile, for his part, looked unimpressed. “How so?”

“Well you see, he…”

“He did lie, and he did spend all his town’s money,” said Selendrile.

“But not because he was off drinking, or, er. Making time for women,” said Alys.

“Self-laceration is also a hobby of which humans are fond,” said Selendrile. “You all enjoy it terribly much. Isn’t that what you do in Church?”

“That’s really not it,” said Alys. She wanted to argue more, but she had to admit she could see how it would look that way to an outsider. “...He didn’t want to kill anyone. I can understand that. It’s a heavy thing, having a life on your soul.”

“It has never bothered me,” said Selendrile.

Alys looked up him. She knew he meant it. She’d seen how easy it was for him.

“But it bothers you,” he allowed, “and I can see why you would respect that hesitance, but if he were truly as remorseful over his deceits as you’re convinced he is, he would turn himself over to the town for their judgment.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“I suppose you would know,” he said, “seeing as it’s what _you_ did.”

He said it with that same careless loftiness he used for most things, but he was looking straight at her. She’d never thought about it like that. She never thought he might have thought about it. It’d been years now. She’d long left St. Toby’s behind, the way she’d had to leave so many things behind, in favor of her strange little life in the cottage in the woods. There was plenty she missed. There was plenty she felt true remorse for. But she couldn’t say she regretted her time with Selendrile since, and maybe that made her a witch after all…

“If he were just doing it for his own reputation, I’d say we should, I don’t know, knock him out and strip the armor right off him,” said Alys, “but I think he really does mean it. The townspeople _love_ Sir Rackham. Even if they do sort of know he’s a bit useless. And he only got into this mess for being too kind -- and for forgetting to take off his helmet.”

“She doesn’t see it that way,” said Selendrile.

“But I do,” said Alys, “and I don’t want anyone to be hurt, if I can help it. That includes you and Khelliandros. If she burns down the town, or eats him, what’s going to stop them from bringing some dragon slayer to come in after you?”

“They might try,” said Selendrile, smiling coldly. “The town is vaguely my concern, but what they think of this knight is of no interest to me. He is in a hole of his own making.”

“It’s a little because of her,” said Alys.

Selendrile tipped his head in agreement. “She did do a poor job at keeping him. What do humans say, when you let your dogs off their leashes?”

“Is that what we are to you?”

Selendrile’s smile froze. Alys looked at him until he looked away.

He sighed, heavily, and tucked his hands behind his head. She wondered who he’d learned that motion from. It couldn’t have been her.

“You have an idea, then?” asked Selendrile. “About how to get the armor back, while letting this fool knight save face.”

“Selendrile,” said Alys, “Do you know anything about ‘plays?’”

 

* * *

 

“Oh, please, Sir Rackham,” cried Alys. She fell to her knees outside the gates of the rectory. “You have to do something. The dragon’s burning our farms and our ships. We can’t hold out forever.”

She’d been outside for more than an hour and she was starting to have second thoughts. She’d meant to stir up some of the town, get them thinking and calling for their hero, but the crowd that now gathered outside the rectory was larger and more vocal than she’d expected. And, still, there was no sign of him. Maybe Sir Rackham really was just a coward. Maybe Selendrile was right. The plan relied a lot on men being willing to stop being stupid and selfish.

“It’s the hardest thing for them to do,” he’d said.

He was right about that.

“Now, now, my children,” Father Donlin was saying, he’d come out to address the gathering crowd, he’d by then all joined in Alys’ little performance, shouting and begging Sir Rackham to appear. “Of course, we do hope that the lord shall provide our deliverance…”

“And isn’t Rackham a servant of the lord?” someone shouted.

“Well, er, yes,” said Father Donlin, taking a step back. He was starting to look vaguely overwhelmed, and Alys wondered again if the knight hadn’t escaped out the back window. “We are all of us his humble servants.”

“Well, why don’t you fight the dragon?” suggested someone else.

That was about the worst possible way it could go. Alys looked over her shoulder. The last thing she wanted was to send some largely innocent priest out there. “But Sir Rackham,” she cried, and hoped her voice would carry over the rest. “Didn’t he promise to fight for Tierbo?”

The crowd abated, slightly. Shouts of agreements. Hemming and hawing.

Then, from behind the gates, a now familiar, booming voice: “And so he shall!”

‘Oh, thank God,’ thought Alys, and she saw that thought echoed in Father Donlin’s face, as Sir Rackham crossed the courtyard in full armor. His gauntlets shown. His surcoats swayed in the wind. He’d even had his armor completely polished. It gleamed brighter than it had before. As he had no apprentices, Alys wondered who’d done that.

“Father Donlin,” said Rackham. “Open the gate. I will answer the people’s prayers.”

“You needn’t,” began Father Donlin, even as he reached for the gate with some relief.

“I must,” boomed Rackham. His little eyes scanned the crowd. They fell on Alys, the way she knew they would. “You, boy. Who are you?”

“Jocko, sir,” lied Alys, standing.

“A fine name,” lied Rackham. “You lost your farm to the dragon, you say?”

“Yes, sir,” lied Alys, looking down at her feet. At least her intense embarrassment could be mistaken for humility. “Burned to the ground, sir.”

‘When did I become so good at this?’ wondered Alys. Then she looked over at the faces of the townsfolk as Rackham clapped her shoulder. They were so filled with hope and relief, she couldn’t help but find it heartening.

“Then, boy, I take up my arms for you,” said Rackham. “Show me to the gates! I will turn this beast away! It will threaten your home no longer!”

“Right, sir!” cried Alys.

By the time they reached the gate, it seemed at least half the town and a quarter of the sailors had joined the parade down the mainstreet. Alys, who’d come to prefer the quietness of the cottage with Selendrile, was almost dizzy from all the talking and singing. By the time they reached the main gate, the sun was low in the sky, and the guards stepped, almost reverently, aside as Rackham presented himself, sword and shield in hand.

“My friends,” he said, turning to the crowd. He couldn’t help but grandstand, but, somehow, despite his big pink cheeks and his jovial features, he seemed possessed all at once by a great solemnity.  “Nay, my family. Forgive me for my absence. I know I have left you in wonderment for too long, but I have prayed long and hard. And I promise you, the man who stands before you is one who will not bring you shame or ruin. Have faith. And have hope. And know that our town is one for heroes, no matter your station, no matter the circumstances of your birth.”

‘He means that,’ realized Alys. ‘He actually does mean that.’

“Huzzah!” cried a woman.

“Rackham, Rackham!” cried a butcher in the back.

“Eh, eh, when’s he gonna stick the thing?” cried one of the sailors.

“Jocko,” said Rackham, fixing his cape over his shoulders. “Serve as my squire.”

“Uh… Yes, sir,” said Alys and, with admiration that was not entirely unfeigned, she followed the knight out the gate.

“Dragon,” cried Rackham, as they marched up the roads, into the hills. Where they would be out of ear shot, but well in the few of any guard or townsperson who crowded up on the city wall. “Dragon, prepare yourself! I have come!”

Nothing.

“...Eh, lad,” muttered Rackham, “You did say your dragon friend would come.”

“He will,” said Alys, wondering if perhaps Selendrile had changed his mind after all. It’s not like he wasn’t allowed to have his opinions… “At least, he _should_.”

“Dragon,” boomed Rackham, “Face me! I’ll not hide from you any longer!”

The silence got long enough that Rackham seemed ready to pack it up and march back down the hill, when a shadow emerged from behind the treeline, and the air grew full with the sound of beating wings.

Rackham whooped, and clapped Alys on the shoulder. “Good at your word, you are!” he cried, and took off across the meadow with a shocking speed, armor clanking the whole way. “Aye, Khelliandros! ‘Tis I, you wicked thing! I’m ready for you! Say your damn piece!”

Alys started to rush after him, but she skidded half way down the slope. The dragon circled the hill, and in the fading light, she could see the sun flickering off its scales.

Red-gold, not pale.

Blue eyes, not violet.

Alys’ heart leapt to her throat. “Sir Rackham,” she cried. “Wait--!”

But Rackham didn’t wait. He raised his shield, shouting like a lunatic. Khelliandros angled her wings and dove at him, talons in front of her. Rackham threw himself to the side as the dragon surged by him, the talons long tears in his cape.

“A-ha,” he laughed. “So you thought!”

Alys stared at the proceedings, horrified.

“That’s not--” ‘The same dragon, you dunce!’ she wanted to shout, but at that moment Khelliandros whirled and spat a gout of flame, and her voice didn’t carry over the loud crackle. Rackham held up his shield. 

“So you think you’ll roast me like some pig, do you?” asked Rackham. Khelliandros responded by sending another gout of fire. He ducked behind his shield, and undid his burning cape. “Cook me alive in this iron cage? Ha-ha! Jokes on you, I need not armor to face you! Here, have your blasted plate!”

He pulled off his helmet and tossed it between them.

Khelliandros paused between inhalations, hovering for a moment above the ground in visible confusion.

“That not enough for you, villain?” roarded Rackham, banging his breast plate before pulling off a gauntlet. “Have that, too! And that!”

There went the next one. He charged at the dragon to throw it. At that point Khelliandros remembered she was a dragon. She whirled in midair, swiping at him with her tail. She caught him in the abdomen and sent him crashing into the long grass.

“Sir Rackham!” cried Alys, afraid she’d gotten the man truly killed -- but, a second later she heard that booming laugh.

“Oh-ho. Think you can have me on my back, do you?” A sound of clanking. Sir Rackham, struggling out of his breastplate. He emerged from the grass in his jerkin. Still brandishing his shield. “Fool, you sign your own doom! I am fleet on my feet!” And to demonstrate, he went charging down the ridge.

Khelliandros leapt over his head in a few easy strokes of her wings. She landed behind him, her head tilted to one side like a particularly puzzled hen.

Rackham threw his shield at her.

“You need that,” cried Alys.

“I need nothing but pluck, my boy,” laughed Rackham, now banging his chest. “Well, villain? What say you now?”

Khelliandros, for a moment, swiveled her head at Alys. She could almost read the disbelief on the dragon’s face.

Then Rackham threw his sword.

It didn’t hit Khelliandros point in. It hit her sideways, smacking harmlessly against the larger scales over her breast, but nevertheless the dragon leapt back, wings half spread. Her jowls twitched, exposing her dagger like teeth. She shrieked and surged down at him, meaning to meet him halfway.

Her claws caught his jerkin. Alys heard the awful, tearing sound. Then, with another shriek, she carried herself back into the air, the remains of jerkin and surcoat both, dangling from her talons.

Alys ran down the hill.

“Sir Rackham,” she cried, in tears, “Sir Rackham, forgive me. I didn’t think….!”

But Rackham lay on his back and laughed. He was quite shirtless. And quite hairy, as it turned out. He had a few red welts, from where the jerkin had been torn off of him, but besides that, he seemed perfectly alive, if a bit scorched.

“For what?” he asked.

“Um,” said Alys. She looked up, half expecting to see the dragon making a circle back to finish the job -- but Khelliandros had vanished back over the trees, and, burning grasses aside, there was no sign of her.

Rackham stumbled to his feet. Alys let him lean on her shoulder.

“Villain,” bellowed the knight. “Threaten this town again, and that won’t be the worst of it!”

“I don’t think they can hear you,” said Alys.

“Oh, damn,” said Rackham, he seemed to drop a bit with that realization. “That’s a shame. Good actor, that friend of yours. Hope I didn’t rough him up too much.”

“No,” said Alys. “I think he’s quite all right.”

 

* * *

 

Selendrile, the rat, turned up after sun down, as she gathered the armor and weapons Rackham had left on the hill.  He wore a loose tunic and slacks, and looked like he hadn’t rushed in the slightest to join her.

“I’m not talking to you,” said Alys.

“She beat me there,” said Selendrile, “but then I thought it might work better.”

“Better?” asked Alys. “She might have eaten him! And me!”

“I thought you weren’t talking to me,” said Selendrile.

“I’m not.”

“Hm,” said Selendrile, watching her. “Well, she wouldn’t have eaten him in her armor. That would have been counter to the point.”

“You could have told me that before I told him to take it _off_ during the _fight_ !” Alys almost threw the helmet at him. “Which was supposed to be with _you_. And how lucky we were he didn’t recognize her. He’d have run for the hills, armor and all! You look nothing alike, by the way.”

“You think so?” Selendrile raised an eyebrow. He looked down at himself, consideringly. “Most humans can never tell.”

“It’s obvious as anything. You’re just lucky Sir Rackham was so dense about it.” Alys waved the sack at him. “You could at least help me pick all this up!”

“Bad form, to touch another’s hoard,” said Selendrile.

“You liar.”

“I do lie,” he said, with his customary smugness, “but not this time. She wouldn’t have eaten you.”

Alys rolled her eyes as she hefted the sack over her back. “Oh, that’s a relief.”

“It is,” he said. “The knight I couldn’t care less about, but you I would prefer not to die.”

Alys paused to look at him then.

“Okay,” she said. “Maybe you mean it.”

She hauled the sack back to the meadow. The one she’d stumbled in, two days ago. She sat down at the edge. Selendrile sat next to her. She shut her eyes and let herself fall against his shoulder.

“Why didn’t she eat him?” asked Alys.

“I wonder,” said Selendrile.

“You won’t tell me? Or you don’t know?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“I like when you answer my questions,” said Alys.

Selendrile made a low sound in his chest, but said nothing else.

Then, as the crickets began to sing, Alys picked herself up, cupped her hands over her mouth, and called out: “Khelliandros! I brought what you asked!”

She waited. The crickets went quiet. The owls went still. A gust of wind ran across the meadow. Then, in a black flurry, a pale woman stood in the grass, tall, and wild, and naked as ever. She stared at Alys with blank eyes. Behind her, she heard Selendrile stand, warily.

“I got your missing treasure,”said Alys, giving the sack a kick. It landed between them, tipping on its side, the shield poking out the top. “Full suit, helmet, sword, and shield. Got his boots, too. Just in case. You can count it, if you want.”

But Khelliandros just regarded it coldly.

“That,” said the dragon, her voice dripping with contempt, “is not my treasure.”

“What?” asked Alys. She could hear Selendrile shift forward, just a touch.

“It is what he took,” said Khelliandros, “but it is not what I wanted.”

“No,” said deep a voice from up the hill. “I never expected that it was. That’s a cruel trick to play on some child, Khelliandros.”

Alys looked up. Khelliandros stayed right where she was, and didn’t look back.

Sir Rackham must have gotten away from the celebrating, because he’d traded in his torn under things for a black travel cloak and a walking stick. He limped with some difficulty down the slope. He hadn’t come out of the ‘fight’ entirely unscathed.

“Foolish as ever, my fat knight,” said the dragon. “ _She_ challenged _me_.”

“Give the lad - er, lass, a break, Khellian,” said Rackham. With one surprised glance Alys’ way. “I’m here, aren’t I? Wouldn’t be here if not for her, too.”

“That depends on what you are here for,” said Khelliandros, narrowing her eyes.

Rackham took a deep breath and dropped down onto his knee. He didn’t do it as neatly as he would have wanted. He had to throw out his arm to make sure he didn’t pitch over. He grabbed his walking stick for balance.

“My Lady Khellian,” he said, panting. “I have done you a great wrong.”

“What,” said Alys.

“Would you do me the honor to right it,” huffed Rackham. “If honor can yet be a word ascribed to me!”

“What,” said Khelliandros.

“You… are saying you will go back with her?” asked Alys “But the town - you said they needed a hero!”.

Rackham smiled, tiredly.

“They have it. A hero, who must leave in search of the fleeing dragon, to ensure their continued safety,” he said. He looked up at Khelliandros. “And to the dragon, I offer my life. Or my service. Whichever you see fit.”

Khelliandros peered over at him. She reached over and took him by the chin, tipping his head up.

“Hm,” she said. “Your life is of little use to me. Your service is barely worth more.”

“I will not run again,” he said. “I was a fool, to run from you in the first place. Lady or dragon, I was in your pay, and you were in my charge, and I abandoned you. Would that I could redeem myself.”

Khelliandros hissed and let him go. He pitched over onto his side with a thump. She put her foot on his side. He kept his eyes very firmly on her face.

“Half wages for a month,” she said, “and you may procure your own armor this time, but we shall see what you can do. You have made me come this far south and fight with a child, and that is irritating.”

“Selendrile’s _not--_ ” started Alys, but neither Khelliandros or Rackham were listening anymore.

“Yes, my lady,” said Rackham, pushing himself up.

“If anything has been taken in my absence, I expect you to retrieve it,” said Khelliandros, marching past him.

“Yes, my lady,” said Rackham.

“Hmph,” said the dragon, who mercifully crossed her arms as she looked back over her shoulder. “There may be some training you yet. Pick up the sack. Drop a piece, and I drop you.”

“Yes, my lady,” said Rackham, but he smiled, as he gathered up the sack.

“Sir Rackham,” said Alys, one last time, “Is this… really okay? This seems a bit...”

“Aye, aye, lad -- lass,” he said. “I don’t expect you to understand. You’re yet young. And a girl, besides! A knight and his lady have a bond that endures beyond all else. Sometimes, a man needs a purpose, and sometimes a man needs a swift kick in the arse.”

“Even, er, if that lady a dragon?”

“Even that.”

“Even when you robbed her?”

“Evidently so,” said Rackham, with a delighted grin.

“He is fat and interesting,” said Khelliandros, boredly. “And less noisy than you.”

She transformed, wrapped her talons around him, and carried him clear out of the meadow, leaving Alys’ to cover her face against the spray of dirt and twigs.

“That...” said Alys, once everything settled, and Khelliandros was just a dark outline on the night sky, no larger than a bird. “...Did not go at all like I thought it would.”

She found Selendrile pressed against a tree, doubled over. She thought, at first, he may have been injured -- but he was laughing, silently.

“Humans,” he said. “So needlessly complicated.”

“Did you know?!” asked Alys. “Did you know that she actually wanted _Rackham_ back?!”

“Not at all,” said Selendrile, mastering himself. “Why would she tell me something like that? But I wondered, how such a pointless man could have ever managed to get so close. I thought they may have struck a bargain.”

“Like the one you made with me?” asked Alys.

Selendrile straightened. His shoulders stopped shaking.

“No,” he said, distantly. “Not like that.”

He transformed. Alys half-expected it. She had her arms out by the time he grabbed her. When he dropped her on the haystack, he didn’t transform back. So she ran up after him, to grab at his wing.

“Selendrile,” she said. “Am I your pet?’

It’d been bothering her for days.

The dragon seemed to roll his eyes.

“But am I?” asked Alys. She nearly fell forward when he transformed under her. He caught her, the way he always did.

“As though anyone as troublesome as you could be called a pet,” he said, laughing.

Alys pressed her face against his bare chest and grabbed his wrist.

“Please answer me,” she said, in a small voice.

She felt his hand press against her back.

“No,” he said. “Am I yours?”

The question surprised her. She looked up at him.

“No,” she said, so instantly he blinked. Then she looked away. “Although, sometimes, I guess, I admit, I think of you as ‘my dragon.’ Not that you could ever be anyone’s but your own!”

“Ah,” said Selendrile. And against her hair, she could feel him smile. “Yes. It’s a little like that.”


End file.
